Handling, Distributing, and Sale of Fruit 205 



the producer may receive a fair price for it. If the prices 

 are artificially fixed, or if the agencies which represent 

 him are in competition with him, then he receives only 

 that which the combination is willing to pay. These 

 different agencies strive to increase the use of fruit so that 

 their profits may be increased. They have agents hi the 

 field to secure business, and agents in the cities, and 

 traveling agents in the smaller places to develop trade. 

 The local buyers, the jobbers, and the brokers push their 

 business in every way known to such agencies, though no 

 comprehensive system of distribution is possible under 

 this plan of farm-crop marketing. The commission mer- 

 chants seek to enlarge their trade by soliciting consign- 

 ments from the producer and by attracting buyers to their 

 stores. The auction companies develop their particular 

 function, while the retail trade encourages the consumer 

 to use the greatest possible amount of the produce. 



The fruit trade has been developed through the activity 

 and competition of these different agencies. They have 

 created a rapidly increasing demand for fruit as a staple 

 article of food and have made it possible for the producer 

 to develop millions of acres of land that have been planted 

 to orchards in recent years. On the whole, the fruit trade 

 of the United States is in the hands of men of integrity, 

 business energy, and resourcefulness. In these respects 

 they equal any other class of men who deal in the products 

 of the soil. There are exceptions to this rule, as there are 

 in every class of business, and dishonest and reprehensible 

 practices have crept into the brokerage, jobbing, com- 

 mission, auction, warehouse, and retail trade which some- 

 times throw suspicion on the entire distributing business. 



